The Life of Sir David Wilkie - With his Journals, Tours, and Critical Remarks on Works of Art (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1843 edition. Excerpt: ...them that much which the church believed was untrue. In a visit to Sir Richard Elford, he paused for a moment, he says, to look at the native place of Sir Francis Drake, and listened with much pleasure to the entertaining anecdotes which Sir Richard, during dinner, related of Sir Joshua, whom he knew, and of Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, and Garrick, whom he had seen; but of these Wilkie has preserved no sample. For this we are VOL. I. B sorry; but he has our praise for refraining from remembering the acrid discussions of Northcote and his coterie, who entered upon the bitter subject of politics with as little temper and moderation as I ever remember. Nor was his dislike confined to any one set of ministers, or to any one form of government; all established authorities--the church, the law, the army, the navy--were alike subjected to his animadversions; while the hatred which he felt for men at home was balanced by his admiration of Napoleon and his government. In these sentiments the coterie of North-cote shared, and " I left them with less regret," says "Wilkie, " than I should have done if their conversation had been less violent." Of this visit to Devonshire, which lasted about a month, Wilkie speaks with much pleasure, though he confesses that the acrid conversations with Northcote were some alloy. As he went partly with the hope of amending his health, he rode much through the country, and, what was equally beneficial, bathed frequently in the sea, which, chilly at first, felt comfortable afterwards and invigorating. He seems to have given his pencil a complete holiday; for, saving a.drawing of Harriet Haydon, on which he confesses he failed to please himself, he made no increase to his list of works; nor did the portrait which Lady Mul-grave...